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I recently got a book about drawing Disney princesses, “Learn To Draw Disney’s Enchanted Princesses” and although it’s ostensibly for ages six and up, I pity the poor six-year old who gets it for her birthday, sits down with her brand new sketchbook and tries to draw her favorite princess. The very first exercise is how to draw Snow White’s head, and if you’re wondering how to draw her eyes, well, here’s step 1 and step 2…Looks like they’re missing two or three steps there to me!

That’s to say nothing of the later exercises: once you get to Tiana, who’s near the end of the book, they don’t even pretend to be holding your hand anymore.

“How To Draw The Tick” was a joke, but the difference between steps 1 and 2 here is no joke at all. This book either should be a lot longer, or should focus on only two or three princesses; either way I think the steps should be broken down a bit more for the benefit of readers who might not have several years of drawing experience to back them up.

However, I’m glad I bought the book, because of the very complexity that makes it so frustrating. If you have patience and drawing skill, it teaches you how to draw the princesses — not simplified approximations, but the princesses everyone wants to see more of, princesses that will make you the Queen of Buzzfeed for a day if you master them and pick some pop culture reference or art style to mash them up with. All you need is to be stubborn enough to draw the same thing over and over and over. There’s a movie about a tour of the Disney studios, The Reluctant Dragon, in which the man taking the tour meets with animator Ward Kimball, who dashes off a sketch and, when praised, answers that the first 100,000 drawings are the hardest. Even if the book broke down every step properly, it can’t do those 100,000 drawings for you. I’m starting to feel like I really will need to do that many drawings just to produce a Snow White head that looks like Snow White, because the slightest mistake is so noticeable.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time with Snow White lately, and I’m not even particularly all that much of a fan of Snow White unless she’s the Snow White in Castle Waiting. As with so many other expressions of femininity, like ballet and applying natural makeup, it takes a lot of hard work to produce a princess face that looks natural, simple and attractive. Trying to draw Snow White reminded me of a blog post by Andreas Deja, who worked as an animator at Disney for 30 years, where he wrote about Cinderella that “if you are off by the width of a pencil line, this character would look like an alien from outer space.” In my quest to draw Snow White, I’ve fallen right into the uncanny valley several times, and you’ll note that I’m not posting any sketches here! (You can see some if you stalk my Twitter account, but I’m not helping you out with a direct link.) But hey, I’m much better at drawing Snow White now than when I first started.

Many of the attendees informally call this event the “Monsters’ Ball,” since all of the archetypes in attendance are fundamentally inhuman. (Are there human-based archetypes? Sure, but if they take physical form and throw a party, it’s not this one.) The nickname doesn’t sit right with everyone, though; Phoenix won’t let it be said around her, since she is very insistent that she’s not a monster. She likes to be known instead for her goodness and sparkly dresses.

“Destructive fire powers tend to suggest ‘monster’ to unbiased onlookers,” Dragon says. Her tone is a little arch but not unkind; they have this discussion nearly every year and the arguments are seldom novel.
“It’s not ‘destructive,’ it’s purifying,” Phoenix answers.
“Tell that to whatever’s being purified,” counters Dragon.

The ball draws to a close, and the archetypes get ready for the final event. It’s not a traditional activity, having only gained popularity in the last hundred years or so, but by now no one wants to be left out. There’s a flurry of movement as archetypes everywhere change their shape and adjust their clothes over the new, smaller bodies.

“This whole thing is so ridiculous,” sighs Fairy as she joins the line for the portal that will transport the group away from the ball.
“I didn’t hear you complaining when we found the house that was passing out full-sized Milky Ways last year,” Kraken says, poking her shoulder. The newly clumsy, child-sized feet of the archetypes around her keep stepping on her costume’s tentacles.

The portal leads to a quiet suburb, dotted with children and their parents going door-to-door. It’s dark enough that no one notices the archetypes stepping out of the portal and out onto the sidewalk, where they cluster into groups of extraordinarily well-dressed trick-or-treaters. A handful of archetypes, including Dragon and Phoenix, have retained their adult human forms, to provide what looks like proper supervision. They’ve learned it’s better if no one asks too many questions about the group.

Kraken is the first to ring the doorbell. “Trick or treat!” she says, directing what she hopes is a smile filled with child-like wonder at the woman who opens the door and holding out a rather large bag.

Now, I have an important question for you all. I understand the archetypes will abide by your decision, so think carefully…

This dress was intended to be a birthday dress, but after much fussing in Photoshop I couldn’t get my initial vision to look as I had intended it to. Just for fun I gave it a bright red color and a playful golden pattern, and then I couldn’t bring myself to change it because it is just too cute. They don’t all have to be super fancy, and I love the movement in the skirt. Maybe this will be the year I finally do a full set of birthday dresses, but this is not the month they will start.

Thanks to everyone who entered my contest last week! I enjoyed reading everyone’s opinions. The winner of the contest was Lorie Harding. I didn’t have the black and white version ready by last week, but it’s done now, with Mia modeling it for us. So, Lorie, please post a comment or e-mail me by next Friday to tell me how you’d like this one colored!

So, this one requires an explanation. A 1912 gown won my poll handily, and then I did a contest to determine who would direct its coloring and patterning. 13 people entered, including my husband Brian, who posted the first comment. Brian is a big Animal Crossing fan, and one of the things you can do in that game is catch different kinds of bugs. He caught a wharf roach, which he warns me, and I will pass the warning on to you, not to google it unless you like really ugly looking bugs. Then one of the animals who lives in his village said “So I’m thinkin’ of basing a design on a wharf roach.” This tickled his fancy, and he produced this image. He also gleefully informed me that, should he win, he wanted a wharf roach themed dress.

I chose the winner by random number using random.org. I just made a list of everyone in the order they’d posted, assigned them a number and hit the button. Brian was #1, and as I hit the button, I thought “Not 1, not 1, not 1.”

He was kind to me, though. He didn’t actually order me to make wharf-roach themed lace. Instead, what he said he wanted was an Egyptian-themed dress with a scarab beetle on it. I was actually happy about this, because as it happened, I had seen some lovely Egyptian Revival 1912 gowns when drawing the sketch for this one. He left it mostly up to me, but said that he wanted it to be a sand color, and he specifically wanted a pith helmet. In his imagination, this dress belongs to the least practical Egyptologist in the world. She’s spending her inheritance looking for lost tombs. That’s right — she got her money from her mummy! (Blame Brian for that one.)

Next week, you can look forward to a mermaid tail! Until then, follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest for site updates, previews and thoughts on what I’m doing lately. If you enjoy my work, I’d also appreciate your support through Patreon.